I received some junk mail the other day and it had a little plastic box sticky gummed to a large postcard-like piece of mail. Supposedly I could pull the plastic strip from the box and it would display my winning number to get a discount on buying a car. I don't own a car (by design) so I wasn't interested in the promotion. But the little plastic box I found to be very interesting. Before I did anything with it I found on the back the manufacturers name and a patent number. At their website they have a mockup that allows you to click on the tab for an animation of the action of activating the Combination Box. In the picture I have pulled the plastic strip. It just lays between the batteries and the cobar-connector. I had to use some pliers to pull it.

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Step 1: Open Device

I ran a razor knife blade into the seam between the front and the back in the upper right hand corner and twisted. It popped the plastic post weld on that side and I repeated on the upper left side. You can see in the picture the two posts are all that hold it together. You can also see that the cobar-connector is held in place by those posts.

Yes I think you could do that if you are very careful on opening the box up the first time. Making the new message might be the hard part. I was able to reassemble it and if I'd glued it back it would have good as new. I have not tried to remove the plastic number strip from the little plastic 'box' that the LED fit into.

I actually got a really bright and vibrant blue LED from one of these promotional things. Used it in my DJ Controller project! Funny part is, the thing didn't even have batteries so the LED was completely unused until I took it out.